What Makes an Infographic Work

Why clients pay for simplicity

Consultants, analysts and marketers all learn the same lesson eventually: clients and executives pay specifically for simplicity, not complexity. Executives like complex ideas and dense data translated into something they can understand and act on quickly, since their time is scarce and their attention is scarcer still. Simplicity is the actual product being purchased, even when the underlying analysis behind it was genuinely complicated.

Simplicity is an editing problem

What makes simplicity difficult is that it requires deciding what to leave out, a much harder editorial judgment than deciding what to include. Anyone can cram every available data point onto a single visual. Choosing the three or four that actually matter, and discarding the rest without losing the underlying truth, is where the real skill lives.1

One dominant idea, not several

The infographics that people actually remember and share tend to organize around a single dominant idea, rather than trying to communicate several loosely related points at once. A visual comparing how a market or industry has changed over a long stretch of time works because it commits to one clear narrative arc, rather than splitting attention across multiple competing storylines.

Visual hierarchy guides the eye

A second recurring trait among successful infographics is a clear visual hierarchy: size, color and placement that guide a viewer's eye toward the most important figure first, then toward supporting detail. Without that hierarchy, even accurate, well-researched data can look like visual noise, since a reader has no cue about which number actually matters most.2

Credible sourcing builds trust quickly

Infographics that clearly cite where their underlying numbers came from tend to earn more trust, and faster, than ones presenting striking figures with no attribution at all. A visible, credible source signals that the simplification was done responsibly rather than for dramatic effect, which matters enormously when the audience is deciding whether to act on what they just saw.3

Marketing value beyond the visual itself

Well-designed infographics also function as genuine marketing tools in their own right, since a visual that gets shared widely carries an organization's name and expertise into rooms a traditional report never would. That marketing value is a real byproduct of good design, not a substitute for it, and infographics built purely to be shared, without real analytical substance behind them, rarely earn the same lasting attention.

Applying the same discipline elsewhere

The underlying discipline behind a great infographic, choosing one idea, cutting everything non-essential, guiding the eye deliberately and sourcing honestly, applies just as well to a slide, a memo or a client presentation. Treating simplicity as a skill worth practicing, rather than an aesthetic afterthought, tends to separate the visuals people remember from the ones they scroll straight past.

• 1Infographic
• 2Data visualization
• 3Data storytelling